C.P.R. resuscitation procedures are useless to the wearers of artificial hearts which rely on an elaborate air drive system for proper functioning. These systems are power operated, requiring electrical input and even though they are equipped with emergency electric power back-up systems, such as batteries, there is always the danger of power outages of a sufficiently long duration to exhaust the back-up energy supply. Failure of the air power drive lines to the heart for even a short duration will be fatal to the patient.
It would therefore be a lifesaving improvement in artificial heart techniques to provide a device maintaining operation of the artificial heart during loss of power of the drive system for the heart and it would especially be an improvement in this art to provide such a device which can be immediately coupled to the air drive lines of the artificial heart and operated by any available attendant without requiring special skills or strength.